It's "a repository containing nearly 100 miles of shelves stacked with some 6 million items [taking up 45 acres]: reels of film; kinescopes; videotape and screenplays; magnetic audiotape; wax cylinders; shellac, metal and vinyl discs; wire recordings; paper piano rolls; photographs; manuscripts; and other materials. In short, a century's worth of the nation's musical and cinematic legacy.... It's here that a recent donation from Universal Music Group, nearly a quarter-million master recordings by musicians including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Bing Crosby, is now permanently housed."

"As part of the Library of Congress, this trove is available to anyone, free. But because of the complexities of copyright law, access is restricted to the library's reading rooms in Washington and Culpeper..."

Their collection sounds amazing, including such delights as every 78 rpm disc recorded by Jelly Roll Morton, or "half a million LPs, among which are dozens of surf and hot-rod music-themed discs that Capitol Records issued in the '60s to capitalize on those crazes, including "Hot Rod Hootenanny" by Mr. Gasser & the Weirdos, with cover art and songs co-written by fabled car designer Ed "Big Daddy" Roth."

The story also discusses the various formats the Library has to archive, from cylinder recordings to DAT tapes.

"I love to give the example that the cylinder from 1900 may be easier to play back than the DAT [digital audiotape] from 2001," sound curator Barton said. "Seriously. There are a lot of DATs that just won't play now."

The most enduring formats? Not CDs or MP3 digital files. "Vinyl discs properly stored will last hundreds of years," Miller said. "Shellac too."

Of course, getting access to this material runs into copyright issues.

Museum director Loren Schoenberg said, "My goal is to have all of it, every last second of it, available on the Internet. If it was up to me, I'd just throw it on the Internet, let everybody sue each other and happy new year. But you can't do that, because you're dealing with [musicians'] estates, labels, record companies and publishers."

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Tommy Brenneck is a guitarist with Sharon Jones and the Dapkings, and also runs the Dunham Records label, an offshoot of Daptone records. Their latest release is a fabulous soul album from Charles Bradley and the Menahan St band, led by Brenneck.

The LA Times had a nice piece on Brenneck and his collaboration with Bradley. Brenneck lists some of his favourite artists, and lets slip that he may be producing the third album from Rodriguez, who's first and second album were produced by Motown legend Dennis Coffey way back in the early 70s. They were reissued recently on Light In The Attic.

“You could tell he [the 63 year old Bradley] was just in this shell,” said Brenneck, who continues to work with the Dap-Kings in a studio-recording capacity. “He was a James Brown impersonator and he was dressing like him all the time, rocking a James Brown wig, full time. He had not found himself as an artist.”

About four years ago a collaboration between Brenneck’s own Menahan Street Band and Bradley started to take shape. “The music came, and then he slowly crawled out of his shell,” Brenneck said. “I think he’s finally casting off that James Brown mask. Even if he does do a James Brown spin or mannerism, he owns it now.”

I posted this last week, but just want to remind you folk to check it out. Enjoy! Thanks

This past week saw the release of Rescape, a remix collection from local producer NSU and I've got a remix on there of his tune West Coast Dub (listen here). I've pulled together a collection of some of the remixes I've done as Dub Asylum, kinda like a demo tape, and a few of them are available as free downloads, including one that is previously unreleased.

The first remixes I did were for the Midnights and Kolab - I hit them up via Myspace, how old fashioned is that? Funny thing is, I did the Kolab remix without ever talking to the guys - did it all via email and IM. Even though they live in the same city as me.
Devine No 5 - The Onleung remix was done for a proposed remix collection of Onelung's 2006 album Binary Pop Songs, but that never happened due to record company stuff. Have a listen and download it for free. Thanks to Onelung for letting me make it available.

Sideways - I did a remix for Kolab when their debut album, What Comes Next dropped in 2008. You can download it for free too. Thanks to Kolab for letting me make it available. They are also available for download from http://soundcloud.com/dubasylum

Outside looking in - The Midnights, a tune that appeared on their debut album, Outside (2010) This remix was done when this tune was knocking round student radio in 2007. I'm currently working on another remix for them.

Hiding - The Hollie Smith remix was for a remix competition she had in Oct 2010. Some cheesy House mix won. Sucky, that. Still like it, tho. Do more reggae, Hollie!

West coast dub - The remix of NSU is off the album Rescape, a remix collection of NSU, out April 25, 2011. That's the cover below.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Seeing as it's New Zealand Music Month, I thought I'd dig out some old magazine articles on local musicians that I wrote a while back. They give you a snapshot of artists earlier in their career...

Coming up, Shayne Carter, Dawn Raid and a few others, written for Pavement, Real Groove and Lava/Selector magazines. This is the first of several posts over the next few weeks, keep your eyes peeled for em.... This article was originally written for North and South magazine in 1999, but they never published it.

Kog Transmissions is the name of a collective of enterprising young long haired musicians, who specialise in making and releasing dance music.

Within an astonishingly short space of time, they have established themselves on the local music scene, with little or no help from the music industry. They have done it all their own way, setting up their own recording studio, releasing their cds on their own label, and selling them at their own cd launch gigs; you pay $15 to get into the gig and get a cd to take home with you.

It's great value for money, and a great night out. The business equation reads like this: they manufacture 500 cd's, get 500 people along to their gig, and hey presto, their cd sells out in one night, rather than sitting in record shops for months and months.

Last year the Kog team released one cd a month, a very ambitious plan, but one that paid off handsomely, rapidly building a loyal following for their musical activities. This clever technique bought them to the attention of major record label Universal Music, who offered to step in and help with the distribution of their cd's around the country.

"We started the studio about three and a half years ago", says Chris Chetland of Kog, "when we moved into this warehouse [situated in Kingsland, Auckland]. Back when we started the studio we had a Metal band at the time [the delightfully named Raw Meat For The Balcony], and we wanted to record our own album, and were getting more into the technology side of music. All the people here knew each other for quite a few years before that, because we all went to school together, and had been in bands together."

They mostly went to Sacred Heart, aligning them with a musical legacy that includes such local music luminaries as Dave Dobbyn, Tim and Neil Finn, Rikki and Ian Morris, Peter Urlich, who also attended that school.

Fellow Kog member Andrew Manning says that "Kog is a place to pool talents; we try to enjoy what we're doing as much as we can, we don't work with anyone we don't like. It's a group of friends, basically." Chetland notes that "By the fact that you're enjoying doing something, you do far better at it." The Kog collective is comprised of six people, most of who live and work together in the Kog warehouse.

Overseas dj's who have visited Kog have been amazed to see them doing everything in-house, unlike the standard methods where the tasks of music production get farmed out; recording, mastering, cd-rom, artwork, video etc are all done on site at the Kog warehouse, hence, they have a lot of creative control over what they do.

Also, having their own studio means never having to pay for studio time, which usually costs up to $150 per hour. Chris estimates that to set up a computer based recording studio would cost $10,000 for new equipment and software, or under $3,000 second hand. This is where computers are making it much easier for musicians to have their own home studio, bypassing the traditional methods of recording in expensive studios, where your creativity is hampered by constantly watching the clock, as your money ticks away.

Musically, the Kog releases have been exploring various musical styles within the dance genre: Chris says "Every release we do is in a different style, which from our point of view is interesting, because you get to learn a different style of music each time, and you get to meet people out of that particular scene. And if someone likes say one of our releases that is in the House style, then maybe they'll trust us and try another one of our releases, like Pitch Black, so it breaks down a lot of those barriers."

That diversity runs from Mark de Clive Lowes jazzy dance to Pitch Black's reggae/techno, to Epsilon Blue's melodic trance, to Baitercells drum n bass. They have also ventured into commercials, doing music for Sky TV, Saatchis, Telecom, and tv shows like Havoc, Queer Nation, and even reworking the Holmes Show theme for their feature on dance music.

Chris has studied complex systems theory and philosophy at university, which has influenced their business approach. "It's like looking at it more from that angle, rather than the standard, strict hierarchical business structures that a lot of businesses operate on. It's like the elephant and the mouse; one is big and lumbering and can squash you, but if you can keep on moving around, you're always evolving, continuously and and quickly there is never a fixed point, you never become a dead state. being able to offer new angles means you can offer a fresh perspective.

"It's the number 8 wire approach; you might not have all the super slick gear, but you just find different ways of doing it. We're putting it (the music) out there in the first place in ways that are unconventional, but also getting really good placement in that environment.

"We could've done it the standard record company way, where you do one release a year, put huge amounts of money in, and wait for it to trickle back in over the next year, or you can pay it all off in one night. We just reconfigured the rules to suit ourselves, rather than just do it like any other record label.

"When you look at any system, you assess what anyone else has done, then you look for different pathways that you can bypass the things that don't fit what you are doing. We wanted to get lots of music out there, and there was no way we could do it using the standard mechanisms that record labels operate under, or most businesses, in fact. By treating it less mechanically and more organically, it grows itself."

Kog are currently putting together a cd for The Gathering, an annual dance party held on Takaka Hill out of Nelson. This is the second year they have compiled a cd for this event, highlighting some of the leading lights in the local electronic music scene, who have also played at The Gathering. The first cd was supported by tv advertising from Universal, and sold over 3,000 copies.

Strut announce the return of their pioneering ‘Nigeria 70’ compilation series with an exclusive new third volume: ‘Sweet Times: Afro Funk, Highlife & Juju from 1970s Lagos’ compiled again by series curator Duncan Brooker.

Excavating another choice batch of rare grooves from Nigeria’s label archives, the new edition places the spotlight on some of the deeper fusions happening across the country during the 1970s as traditional guitar highlife blended with jazz and funk, hypnotic juju grooves became more progressive and young Nigerian bands came through with their own heavy West African take on U.S. soul, funk, disco and rock.

Monday, May 02, 2011

Last week, the Hit It and Quit It radio show,hosted by Recloose and Frank Booker, ran a special on Dennis Coffey, including an interview with the man. Both Recloose and Coffey are from Detroit. Check it out.

"... Before recording his solo work Dennis was a member of Motown's surest house band 'The Funk Brothers', featuring on soul classics such as the Temptations' 'Ball of Confusion' and 'Cloud 9', Edwin Starr's 'War' and Freda Payne's 'Band of Gold'.

Little did Dennis realise that as he jammed, experimented and recorded his music that he was inadvertently laying down the bedrock for dozens of hip-hop and jungle classics to ensue over the following forty years. Some of Dennis' biggest hits were heavily driven by their infectious breakdowns, quickly becoming rhythmic fodder for the earliest hip-hop DJs and later producers of the 1980s and beyond.

We checked in with Dennis in Detroit just before the release of his brand new record, self-titled 'Dennis Coffey' on the mighty Strut Records. The album hit shelves April 25 and features collaborations with Mayer Hawethorne, the Dirtbomb's Mick Collins, Fanny Franklin, Paolo Nutini and Kings Go Forth. Also be on the lookout for a Dennis Coffey remix project in the very near future featuring 14KT, Apollo Brown, Dabrye and yours truly (Recloose)."

President Obama suggests that now that Donald Trump has solved the 'issue' of his birth certificate, he can get onto more pressing questions, like what really happened at Roswell, and where's Biggie and Tupac? The Donald got schooled.

Little Dragon have a new album on the way, called Ritual Union, out July 16. Here's a live preview of the first single, Little Man (hat tip: Potholes in my blog)

This track sounds kinda familiar, I think Little Dragon may have played it in their opening set before the Gorillaz show at Vector Arena last December. I really hope Little Dragon come back and play their own show, I'd love to see em in a club setting.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

"In post-earthquake #2 Christchurch (2011), the number of independent record shops sits at a precarious five with a question mark still remaining over four of these. Galaxy Records , Selwyn Street and Radar are all in premises hit badly by the quake. The week before the second quake ‘Evil Genius’ opened a shop in Lyttelton. The timing and location could not have been worse. I hope they all make a Lazarus like resurrections."

US hiphop producer Oddisee is currently working on the new album from his group Diamond District, due out later this year. Their debut album dropped late 2009, and you can download the instrumentals from that album now for free. Preview them below, nice dirty hiphop drums with jazzy samples....

Friday, April 29, 2011

From 1981, Auckland band the Newmatics, off the double 7 inch EP, Broadcast O.R. The Riot Squad rose to infamy during the 1981 Springbok rugby tour, but the Newmatics had encountered this particular group of coppers the previous year, at one of their gigs.

This week saw the release of Rescape, a remix collection from local producer NSU, and I've got a remix on there, of his tune West Coast Dub (listen here). I've pulled together a collection of some of the remixes I've done as Dub Asylum, kinda like a demo tape., and a few of them are available as free downloads, including one that is previously unreleased.

The first remixes I did were for the Midnights and Kolab - I hit them up via Myspace, how old fashioned is that? Funny thing is, I did the Kolab remix without ever talking to the guys - did it all via email and IM. Even though they live in the same city as me.
Devine No 5 - The Onleung remix was done for a proposed remix collection of Onelung's 2006 album Binary Pop Songs, but that never happened due to record company stuff. Have a listen and download it for free. Thanks to Onelung for letting me make it available.

Sideways - I did a remix for Kolab when their debut album, What Comes Next dropped in 2008. You can download it for free too. Thanks to Kolab for letting me make it available. They are also available for download from http://soundcloud.com/dubasylum

Outside looking in - The Midnights, a tune that appeared on their debut album, Outside (2010) This remix was done when this tune was knocking round student radio in 2007. I'm currently working on another remix for them.

Hiding - The Hollie Smith remix was for a remix competition she had in Oct 2010. Some cheesy House mix won. Sucky, that. Still like it, tho. Do more reggae, Hollie!

West coast dub - The remix of NSU is off the album Rescape, a remix collection of NSU, out April 25, 2011. That's the cover below.

Ebo acknowledges the influence of US jazz rockers Blood Sweat & Tears and – less obviously, perhaps – Deep Purple on this easy going mid-tempo piece, written a few years before it was recorded, when Osibisa and various ‘blaxploitation’ themes were hip. “I was trying to fuse rock and jazz together with highlife,” Ebo recalls. “This kind of music was ahead of its time – not very popular when we recorded it!”

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

She sat outside Verona or St Kevins arcade, asking for change or a ciggie, for 28 years (source). She passed away in her sleep, according to staff at Alleluyah. Have had her passing confirmed by someone from K Rd Business Association. Apparently she lived in Parnell and used to take to bus to K Rd every day.

TV3 news item on Margaret - watch here. More on the story from Stuff.co.nz
Her last name was Hofman. A service is planned for next Tuesday at the Baptist Tabernacle, at the top of Queen St.

ADDED Found a messsage board with tales of Margaret, posted in 2009...

" took Margaret to the Casino once after she kept questioning me about what it was like...she got all dressed up, but when we got there they wouldnt let her in, because one of the bouncers knew her...There was quite a fuss, as I demanded to speak to a supervisor...eventually they let us in, on the proviso that I was responsible for her...waste of time, as we were there 5 mins, when she suddenly realised that you couldnt smoke in there...LMAO...so we went & ate Burgerking instead, before walking home! "

"Margaret was never a model...she was however, one of Aucklands "it" girls, in the 1950,s...racing about town in a sportscar, drinking at all the upmarket supper clubs...she comes from a wealthy family! She has been married, & has had a child, who died at a young age...this tragedy split her marriage up...I was told all this by an elderly friend who knew her in those days...I asked her about it once, & she nodded her head, then told me "its in the past, I dont want to talk about it".. "

Very interesting article from The Economist on UK music retail. Says that supermarkets accounted for over a third of UK CD album sales last year, up from just over an eighth in 2000. Also makes the point that independent music shops have survived by sticking with physical product and embracing internet sales.

This mention of Rough Trade East... "an independent in London, has a stage for in-store gigs and a coffee shop, selling the experience of visiting a shop dedicated to music as much as the recorded product itself..." reminds me of my local, Conch Records. It's why these shops are surviving, and thriving.

Their master's voice: Independents need the industry’s last retailing giant to flourish

"Music retailing has had a curious April. HMV Group, owners of the last surviving high-street music chain and linchpin of the business, produced its third profits warning of the year as conditions on the high street “remained difficult”. Yet on April 16th hundreds of bleary-eyed shoppers across the country queued from sunrise outside HMV’s independently owned competitors. They were waiting for the one-off releases on sale to mark Record Store Day, a “celebration of music” organised by independent music shops, with over a thousand outlets participating around the world.

The popularity of this event suggests that small specialist music sellers are healthy. Some are, but they need their sickly mass-market opponent to recover. Over the past decade the way Britons buy music has changed radically, and this has hurt both chain stores and independents.

Millions now purchase chart CDs, often on impulse, when they are out shopping for groceries: supermarkets accounted for over a third of CD album sales last year, up from just over an eighth in 2000. Tesco alone receives more than £1 of every £10 spent on music in Britain. Most of all, the internet has transformed buying patterns. Home delivery accounted for a quarter of album sales in 2010, an estimated half of which were from Amazon, the internet giant. Digital downloads have all but wiped out the singles market, for years the lifeblood of local record shops: 160m songs were downloaded last year (most for less than £1), but only 2m physical singles were sold, down from 44m in 2002.

When the economy weakened, these changes helped kill off three high-street general retailers: Woolworths, Zavvi (formerly Virgin Megastore) and Borders. The number of indies also plummeted. The Entertainment Retailers Association says there were 281 of them at the last count, down from 578 in 2006. Those that focused on chart music closed first, and many more lacked the resources or the will to renew leases first taken on in the early 1970s.

But some independents are thriving. They embraced the internet but avoided the distraction of digital downloads. Half the turnover of Manchester’s Piccadilly Records comes from online sales; Philippa Jarman, its co-owner, says that “one of our shrewdest decisions was to stick to physical rather than digital downloads.”

Concentrating on physical products left independents well placed to capitalise on the recent revival in vinyl, too. Surviving independents highlight the importance of having staff who are immersed in the music scene, so that they act as a trusted filter in an industry with millions of products on offer. The most successful stores have used this expertise to create a sense of community far removed from the stereotypical shop staffed by snobbish music nerds. Rough Trade East, an independent in London, has a stage for in-store gigs and a coffee shop, selling the experience of visiting a shop dedicated to music as much as the recorded product itself.

By contrast, HMV has diversified into clothing, gaming and selling tickets to events, cutting its dependence on CDs but diluting its distinctiveness. With its shares now around 10p, down from 85p a year ago, the firm may sell its book chain, Waterstone’s, and close at least 40 HMV stores. The four biggest record labels are even considering supplying the retailer with non-chart music on a “sale or return” basis, freeing cash to reduce its £130m debt.

The labels need HMV to survive in order to keep lucrative non-chart music on the high street. So too do the independents, for if HMV were to fail, the labels would cut back their operations, drastically shrinking the market. HMV’s logo famously shows a terrier listening intently to a gramophone; even the indies hope the top dog regains its form."

Friday, April 22, 2011

"... Here’s my question, why are we just promoting independent record stores one day a year? Where are all these record and music enthusiasts the other 364 days? Rob Henry, a NJ based DJ/ Record Store Buyer had this to say:”I think record store day is just that. Not vinyl awareness day. Not a thank you to all vinyl buyers. It’s a day for those record stores to make some coin. This is their Black Friday. I’m cool with that. I hope they prosper from RSD. If the ‘industry’ needs to make an excuse for people to spend their money in record stores, that’s fine.

"Vinyl sales have increased over the past few years yet shops are closing all over the place. Who wants record stores to be solely online? We need to keep a physical connection between distributors and vinyl buyers.” This is true, it is not vinyl awareness day, it’s record store day. I get a little touchy because it has the word “record” in it and the logo for RSD has an LP and a 45 in it. However, I am posing the question again: Where are all these people the other 364 days a year? Downloading music from iTunes for pay or the internet for free?"

He also notes that Record Store Day has sponsorship from EMI, Warners, Sony and Universal, which isn't exactly indie.

He puts forward a good argument on what exactly Record Store Day has grown to signify. Funnily enough, someone from Record Store Day's official organising team saw it and posted a response. It's a little patronising.... "Ironically, here I am typing you about a negative slanted posting about record stores running Record Store Day .... As far as not celebrating year round. I can’t help but think you are new to discovering Record Store Day."

DJ Prestige replies, pointing out his years of experience as a DJ, record store owner and promoter. "... I still make a living as a DJ who celebrates every day as Record Store Day. In fact, I did a joint collaboration this year with photographer Eilon Paz from DustandGrooves.com where we showcased a record store owner in Brooklyn that has been a staple in the community for over 4 decades.

"Being record related, it was posted on the Facebook page of Record Store Day to help spread the message of this man who’s business was in danger of being shut down. The photo essay and short paragraph were removed shortly after I posted it. I found that a bit odd, seeing that it was celebrating a record store, on RSD. It was then I wanted to do some investigating on my own on RSD itself..."

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Bill Wyman (Ex Rolling Stones geezer) has written a fascinating piece entitled "Lester Bangs' Basement -What it means to have all music instantly available".

"Lester Bangs, the late, great early-rock critic, once said he dreamed of having a basement with every album ever released in it... [now] A previously "rare" CD or movie, once it's in the iTunes store or on the torrent networks, is, in theory, just as available as the biggest single in the world...

Wyman talks about wanting to find the Rolling Stones film Cocksucker Blues.

"The film, a porny, drug-soaked cinéma vérité by the noted photographer Robert Frank, was never officially released. Indeed, under some sort of legal agreement with the Stones, Frank can show it publicly only when he is physically there. It tends to be presented at college events or in museum screening rooms..." it took Wyman 30 seconds to find it and about half an hour to download. He also talks about some film fans who work at restoring the films before uploading them too.

Onra is giving away his 2007 album The Big Payback. Why? According to Potholes In My Blog , Onra says “we never made any money out of this shit, so might as well give it for free now.” Which is kinda grim. But wait, there's more.

Onra's Facebook page has a bit more information... "I don't know if you heard about this project I made with a keyboard player from Alabama called Byron The Aquarius. We made it in 05/06, on some futuristic ish, but it was released in the summer 2007, only in Japan and France. Time to share it with the world now..."

Read this great story over on Martyn Pepperells' blog, damn it's a cool read. Doug Hream Blunt dropped a few tunes in the late 90s, then disappeared. Martyn tracked him down, after discovering his music "while trawling the internet for a Dam Funk remix of an Ariel Pink song. Googling both artist’s names together, the first entry to come up was a blog post in the Line Out Section of thestranger.com. Titled ‘Dam-Funk X Ariel Pink = Doug Hream Blunt’, writer Dave Segal’s post included a YouTube link to ‘Gentle Persuasion’."

“Yes, this is Doug Blunt! Who is this?”

Speaking down the line from San Francisco, Doug Hream Blunt literally can’t understand a word I’m saying. To be fair though, he has probably never had a phone call from New Zealand before. The loud background noise of a TV set playing and several children running rampage around the house isn’t helping either. For a moment I consider abandoning ship. “Oh, you’re from New Zealand right?” says Blunt, speaking with a tone which makes me realise he knows exactly who I am and why I’m calling.

Whist speaking with this highly underrated San Francisco singer and musician, this sort of dichotomy characterises all. With an accent which mixes American and Caribbean, Blunt will swing from having no idea what I’m saying, to connecting completely with my questions, in the process displaying an amazing degree of enthusiasm. On the other side of the scale, he’ll just as quickly disconnect from me, slowly trailing off with his sentences. And as someone familiar with his highly prized musical output, every answer or reaction sits perfectly with his sound.

I first became aware of Blunt’s work while trawling the internet for a Dam Funk remix of an Ariel Pink song. Googling both artist’s names together, the first entry to come up was a blog post in the Line Out Section of thestranger.com. Titled ‘Dam-Funk X Ariel Pink = Doug Hream Blunt’, writer Dave Segal’s post included a YouTube link to ‘Gentle Persuasion’.

An incredible song, ‘Gentle Persuasion’ blends the hazy lo-fi aesthetic Ariel Pink has become associated with, with the early eighties boogie funk/RnB feels often connected to Dam Funk; evening throwing some carribbean/tropical touches in for good measure. I was absolutely floored over by this waking dream of a tune. Faded as hell, the song sees Blunt alternate between singing macked out sexual innuendos and noodling away on his guitar. The sort of player who goes so out of key on his solos that he actually comes back into key, Blunt is aptly supported by some super beached keyboards, strutting bass, snappy drums and a gorgeous female backing vocal.

Completely captured by ‘Gentle Persuasion’, after some specific digging, I made contact with Blunt’s LA based label, OT Records and Fun. Through them I purchased copies of both Blunt’s 12inch ‘Gentle Persuasion’ record and a CD album of the same name. OT Records and Fun also put me onto a series of video clips on vimeo.com. Taken from CITYVISIONS, a public access TV channel in San Francisco, the three incredible clips show Blunt and what looks like a band of high school music students syncing along to three of Blunt’s songs: ‘Ride The Tiger’, ‘Love Land’ and ‘Caribbean Queen’. The clips are incredible, easily some of the most amazing examples of a hypnagogic state I’ve ever seen.

Rocking a mini-afro, slender black aviator shades and a cream suit, Blunt holds down guitar and vocals. His band consists of a white girl with big hair and blue denim jeans on guitar, another white chick with a cowboy hat and a leather jacket on keys, what appears to be an Indian woman in a lime shirt on bass, a funny little bearded guy on vibraphone and a spiky haired guy in a striped blue shirt on drums. Backed by a black backdrop, and positioned on a blue stage, in reference to Hypnagogic states, all three videos have a weird quality to them which makes you think they might not actually be real. It’s kind of like the sci-fi/fantasy story trope about the shop weird shop you visit once and get a gremlin from. The strange shop you can’t ever find again and seems to have been replaced by a brick wall. I was obsessed and I needed to know more.

Juggling talking with me on the phone with entertaining his three children (“They really are a handful,” he says with a happy sigh), Blunt slowly lets me in on the best kept secret that is his back story. The facts are interspersed with constant laughter and a reoccurring sense of disbelief that someone from New Zealand is talking to him on the phone. “I was born in Arkansas originally, but I came to San Francisco when I was younger, when I was seven,” he says, after repeating my question about where he is from back to himself several times. This parroted verbal repetition is a habit he displays throughout our interview.

While his parents were music lovers, they didn’t play any musical instruments themselves. That was something Blunt would have to pick up for himself later in life. Still, between them and the rest of the people on his street, he had the love of music drilled into him from young. ” I was raised in this poor neighbourhood in San Francisco,” he passionately reflects, placing emphasis on the word “poor”. “The only thing we had to do was listen to music. You know? It was really poor. You couldn’t go outside and stuff. All you could do was just listen to music. It was funny. I got addicted to it.” Raised on RnB and Rock and Roll, Blunt quickly became a record collector. As he puts it, in a very matter of fact way, “I was of that generation, so I collected, you know? I collected a lot of vinyl cause I was of that generation.”

Name-checking The Whispers and Jimi Hendrix (a name he will come back to later), Blunt had been playing guitar and singing for, in his words, “six or seven years,” when he hooked up with a young studio owner named Victor Flaviani to record at his Flaviani Recording Studios in San Francisco. As to when exactly this occurred however, Blunt is close to blank. The best he can hazard is sometime in the late 90s. “Victor [Flaviani] was a music teacher,” Blunt happily recalls. He had a music workshop so he was able to do the album for me in there.”

As to why he wanted to record a record at the time, Blunt is just as faded as he is with exact dates. “I don’t know why man? I have no idea?” he laughs. What he does remember though, is he recorded it in less than a week. “Victor was new to studio work,” Blunt says. “Since he was new, he didn’t ask a lot. And I didn’t ask a lot, cause I didn’t know a lot,” he explains, trailing off with a giggle. In terms of his studio band, Blunt teamed up with some musician friends, a couple of Flaviani’s music students, Flaviani’s sisters and even Victor himself on drums. It sounds pretty ad hoc and somewhat slapped together, and it kind of was, but not completely. “I wasn’t just whoever I could get though,” Blunt passionately states. “I felt that they could all do it you know. If I thought you could do it, I let you do it!”

Defining a capable musician as one who, as he puts it after a lot of serious thought, “Can keep a beat and keep the time and knows his chords,” Blunt’s ultimate musical icon is Jimi Hendrix. “I like Jimi Hendrix,” he enthuses with a touch of frustration. “I’ve been trying to get a weird sound like that, but I can’t get it!” “I want to sound like that, but,” seemingly on the verge of a big statement, he just trails off, dropping into silence for a few semi sad moments. Ironically, what Blunt doesn’t seem to realise, yet is constantly ticking over, and occasionally interjecting my questions with his own questions about, is his lionised cult status.

On ‘Gentle Persuasion’, an album inspired by, like he explains, “the life experiences of living all over California,” Blunt and his ragtag band of players throw down a series of seven fundamentally Californian (and cross-genre jams). Musically, the record is the sound of spending your whole life in a haze of weed smoke, whiskey and women on the beaches of California. They’re the sort of daydream funk meets glazed over radio rock jams that make doing nothing but staring at the wall all day seem like a pretty cool idea. You can literally feel how much time Blunt must have spent chilling on corners and stoops across the state, taking it all in, one breath at a time. Subconsciously drawing his lyrics from these languid days, Blunt views music as something which just pops out and comes through you. His favourite jam is his tune ‘Wiskey Man’, a tune built around the repeated refrain “I got to be mellow”. And if you ask him where he got his sound from, his answer is simple, and so damn cool. “I got it from California man!”

In terms of what he has done on the live circuit, Blunt is just as vague as he is with recording dates. He mentions having held a few gigs singing and playing guitar at the local hospital. Then there is the CITYVISIONS performance, which in typical Blunt fashion, he has minimal factual memories about and a maximum emotional response. “I don’t know man,” he says, speaking with a special emphasis which makes you realise those televised song were a special moment for him. “It was just something that happened, and I just did it. It was good. It was good to be on TV, and I did it!”

These days, Blunt is a lot more low-profile with the music. He’s a father with a young family. Worryingly though, the major reason he hasn’t been playing is he had a stoke recently. “I’m getting back on my feet, but that took it out of me,” he admits, with an underlying mixture of strength and sadness. “That was a lesson man. It doesn’t really bother me that much though, not now.” Still, as a result he isn’t playing guitar. As a replacement, Blunt has been playing the congas (perhaps an extension of flourishes of tropical feel on his earlier work?) and taking trumpet lessons. Alternating between happy and sad, he makes and amusing and really exciting musical threat. “When I’ve finished studying trumpet I will probably go back to record with Victor Flaviani and try and do some singing behind the trumpet .”

Blunt doesn’t use the internet and as a result is more or less ignorant of his cult artist status and the astronomical prices people attempt to retail copies of his twelve inch record and CD for on the internet. During our conversation I actually get the sense that processing the stories I tell him about the niche interest in his music and the manner in which it presages plenty of contemporary musical trends is probably making it difficult for him to focus on my questions. As alien as the idea is to him, he is very enthusiastic about it. The thing is though, as you can tell from listening to his songs and his earlier comments, he is one hell of a chilled out dude. People find him, he doesn’t find people. Equally, as opposed to seeking out opportunities, opportunity seeks him out. It’s situations like this which have lead to his current arrangement with OT Records and Fun, who have been pumping his CDs and vinyl records out to music lovers across the globe, for a fair, affordable price. Similarly, it’s thanks to OT Records and Fun that I’m able to interview Blunt.

Doug Hream Blunt might be unknown, he might be underrated, and he might even stay that way forever. I get the sense that none of that really matters to Blunt though. He’s made music, played music, has a family and is experiencing a late career resurgence he probably never even imagined would occur. It’s the “well ahead of your time” scenario that so many truly great artists suffer from. Regardless of what happens from here on in, one thing is certain, Doug Hream Blunt is gonna remain chilled out as hell, just like his awesomely casual musical output.

Bottling the essence of everything carefree about California isn’t easy, unless you’re so laid back, you didn’t even have to think about trying. Which in a nutshell is - the Doug Hream Blunt story.

Distance from view is the debut album from Auckland-based DJ and producer Scratch 22, and it's out this week. He's stitched together an epic sweep of sonic sauciness, that takes you on a rather splendid journey. There's student radio faves Medicine Man, and Window Rattle, plus a ton of other great tunes. Think DJ Shadow or RJD2, add in some David Axelrod and a healthy dose of Ennio Morricone and you're on the right track... Have a listen below.

Read Rip It Up's interview with Scratch 22 by Martyn Pepperell, over here.

"Strut is thrilled to present the debut album by Arthur’s Landing, a morphing collective of musicians who worked with the late and revered Downtown New York singer / songwriter and virtuoso cellist Arthur Russell at various times during his career, from his experimental pop (The Sailboats) and modern classical (Singing Tractors) to his avant-garde disco projects (Loose Joints, Dinosaur L)..."

WATCH: Arthurs Landing discuss their album project and the late Arthur Russell...

If you were in the music scene in Auckland in the late 80s and early 90s, you will have crossed paths with Barbie Francks. She was a ball of energy, a crazy, inspired woman always bursting with ideas. She was a BFM DJ, and I first came across her as she was good friends with Lisa van der Aarde, who managed my band Hallelujah Picassos (Lisa hosted BFM's Freak The Sheep show). She was also a music journalist - I recall her interviewing the Picassos for Rip It Up magazine.

Barbie came on tour with us once, as our driver. We were going down to do some shows in Napier and Gisbourne. She was a crazy driver too, from memory. Barbie died suddenly of a heart attack on Friday, aged 50. Much love to her partner Phil and her children.

From NZ Herald: FRANCKS, Linda (Barbie). On 16 April 2011 suddenly at Auckland City Hospital. Loved partner of Phil. Mother of Patrick, Bella and Lawson.ADDED There's a wake for Barbie, this Friday April 22 from 1pm at The Thirsty Dog, 469 K Rd.

ADDED Some photos from the wake are here on Facebook, more on the event page here, plus a short video clip I shot, below.

Friday, April 15, 2011

The NZ Herald did a cool story on Record Store Day, talking to a few folk including Nick D, Rose Matafeo, Tanya Perrie, Dustin Lindale at Conch Records, and Sarah Williamson, store manager of Real Groovy Records AK.

"... Williamson says it is not only the tactile quality of records that is luring young people back from the MP3s. Some are drawn to the superior sound.

"And it's the nature of listening to music that they learn about. The process of sitting down putting a record on and sharing it with other people; this whole sort of "in ear" headphone culture is making music less accessible I think. It's too private."

While Real Groovy's clientele spans a vast range of ages and musical interests, Williamson says she has definitely noticed more young collectors spending their pocket money on retro albums.
"I've seen kids who look like they could be 11 or 12, they are the raddest little kids. They know what they want, they look around, they buy stuff."

So, do they still make flexidiscs? Yes they do. Where? In Australia, as it happens... got this email yesterday from Vinyl Factory, the crowd that pressed by Dub Asylum - Ba ba boom 7" vinyl single and did a great job on it too.

"Vinyl Factory Australia is proud to announce that we have begun producing flexi-discs. We have been the very lucky recipients of the last remaining flexi-disc machine, formerly owned by Ambassador press, and last in operation in 1989 in Sydney!

For the last 20 years it has been stored in a shed in Canberra. Vinyl Factory has reconditioned the machine and updated a lot of the gear and are now very happy to be producing flexis.

Pricing is set at the introductory level of 62 cents per disc plus setup costs . Min qty of 1000. Single or double sided available." Contact Vinyl Factory online here.

I recently finished a remix from NSU, a local electronica/techno producer. He's pulled together a handful of talented local musicians and producers to remix his debut ep Escape, and it's coming out at the end of April. You can preview my remix below. A mate of mine called my remix "Hawaiian haka step" which I kinda like...

"... I come from a family of “collectors”, though their reasons were far different than mine when I started. My parent’s parents migrated north from Alabama and the Kentucky/Ohio border near the turn of the century, via The Underground Railroad.

With that, their need to keep and care for things they considered valuable stemmed from not truly having anything to call their own prior to migrating north...

... I really appreciate this gift from my family, because it taught me to care for my belongings and investments on a higher level now, as a man. I think I became a “collector” prior to leaving home for college...

... Vinyl is the origin of my personal love for music, aside from 8 track tape, my grandparent’s church, piano lessons, and 70’s radio. I was simply born during a time where these were the primary consumer mediums for music, so I really don’t know any better. I am not so much of a purist that I have bad thoughts or words for other mediums though.

"I think I went through that phase when the iPod hit the marketplace for like a year. Then, I found myself purchasing one and strolling the streets with 3,00 songs in this little machine. I found the merit in technology then for sure.

But beyond that, the sonic quality of the vinyl format is so warm and full when compared to all digital mediums it’s ridiculous. There is no reputable argument for that point. Storage space is not the baseline issue when discussing the collection of music. The music and your relationship with that music is the baseline issue..."

Cheese on Toast interviewed talented young Auckland DJ and producer Scratch 22 about his debut album, out next week on Round Trip Mars Records, and also getting released in Europe thru Wax On Records (the label run by Nightmares on Wax).

Listen to Medicine Man, the first single off the album below. Single released this week.

" ... The last of the dying breed was Black Cat Records in Red Bank, NJ. Owned by former Lifetime vocalist Ari Katz, a seasoned veteran of music, it too eventually fell to the times, closing it’s doors for good in the early 2000′s. Let’s face it, with the portability of the CD and now MP3′s, us vinyl nerds are a dying breed.

That’s why on this Saturday, April 16th, we need to support our local vinyl slinger for National Record Day. So go on and do that, until then, click the link to check out 40 sad portraits of record stores that closed. You may have even shopped in one of them. Keep Diggin’!"

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Record Store Day is happening again this Saturday. Here's a few shops locally putting on some fun n games...

Conch Records, Auckland

Conch will be celebrating the day with an in-store performance from Karlmarx (Isaac Aesili, ex Solaa, Opensouls). Karlmarx is the artist name for production duo Isaac Aesili (aka Karl) and Mark McNeill. Isaac is based in Auckland and his brother Mark is based in Christchurch. Karlmarx have enjoyed radio support by Benji B (BBC 1Xtra) and Lefto (Brownswood). The song “Mists“ is featured on the Brownswood comp “Lefto & Simbad present Worldwide Family Vol.1“.

Sadly, Real Groovy Wellington is closing down over the next few months - but fear not, Record Store Day is all go! Their celebration will be of the history and legacy Real Groovy Wellington. They'll be hosting guest musicians (and customers) from 12 noon to play their favourite LPs; there will also be a sausage sizzle and prize packs to give away. Then It's over to the Southern Cross for a Record Store Day celebration night! A massive Music Quiz with a prize to fight for. Live bands and DJs. Special deals on the superb Southern Cross food. And a fun time for all! http://www.realgroovy.co.nz/Information/84

Utterly mad reggae/ska made with gaming consoles. Amusing or painful? You decide.

"This album is a collection of reggae, ska, dub, and everything in between, played on a variety of game consoles. It was organized by Euan Lynn (TraceKaiser) on 8-Bit Collective (www.8bitcollective.com), and features a variety of artists from around the world."

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://rudeboy8bit.bandcamp.com/album/rude-boy"&amp;amp;gt;Rude Boy by Rude Boy: Jamaican Music on Japanese Consoles&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Monday, April 11, 2011

"Craig Roberts bought three records at the Rotorua Record Fair at Ngongotaha Hall yesterday. He said he had recently got back into listening to vinyl, buying a new record player after finding some old LPs he had in the attic.

"I just fancied listening to them again."

He said he liked listening to records because they brought back memories from years ago and he considered the sound quality to be better than CDs, as long as the records weren't scratched."